prove to me that communism isn't immoral as heck

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Japher


It's all about your frame of mind... Yet taking a stance on it's morality would present for a very vague argument. It would be like a jew and a catholic arguing about which knife to cut the pork with.

sorry I'm not a relativist

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MrFun
We know what you're REALLY up to -- you're plotting a communist revolution in the United States.

I've never denied that. Not so much plotting, as trying to convince enough people to be able to do it.

[Japher]

Communism is obviously a crappy government system - if it was good people wouldn't starve and floating to capitalist countries in makeshift boats... Yet, electivly participating in a communist regime is not amoral, yet forcing people to take part in it is a suppression of freedoms, which, IMO is amoral...

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I've never denied that. Not so much plotting, as trying to convince enough people to be able to do it.

Well, at least your plans are based on a pipe-dream.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MrFun
Well, at least your plans are based on a pipe-dream.

"It is unreasonable people who change the world, " Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1912, there were only 50 members of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Five years later they over threw the government, twice.

In 1965, if you told someone that in five years there would be millions of people in the streets protesting the Vietnam War, they would have looked at you like you were crazy. Yet it came true.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


"It is unreasonable people who change the world, " Frank Lloyd Wright.

And have their dreams popularized, cheapened and abused by every mediocre suburban developer in the US. Now if only Wright had been more reasonable, less succesful ......

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Japher
Communism is obviously a crappy government system - if it was good people wouldn't starve and floating to capitalist countries in makeshift boats... Yet, electivly participating in a communist regime is not amoral, yet forcing people to take part in it is a suppression of freedoms, which, IMO is amoral...

They come on those boats expecting to live in Manhattan but end up in the South Bronx. Then find they can't even afford to buy the materials to build a return boat.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


"It is unreasonable people who change the world, " Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1912, there were only 50 members of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Five years later they over threw the government, twice.

In 1965, if you told someone that in five years there would be millions of people in the streets protesting the Vietnam War, they would have looked at you like you were crazy. Yet it came true.

That still does not disprove that yours is nothing but a pipe dream.

[SKILORD]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


"It is unreasonable people who change the world, " Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1912, there were only 50 members of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Five years later they over threw the government, twice.

In 1965, if you told someone that in five years there would be millions of people in the streets protesting the Vietnam War, they would have looked at you like you were crazy. Yet it came true.

In 1781 there were approximately no Fascists in America. Five years later:

Still true. What's more, they didn't overthrow the government.

Not once.

-

Your statistics are only impressive because they are the exception rather than the rule.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by SKILORD


In 1781 there were approximately no Fascists in America. Five years later:

Still true. What's more, they didn't overthrow the government.

Not once.

That depends on who you ask.

[SKILORD]

Originally posted by Osweld


So how do you like being a slave, giving part of your wage to feed and shelter people, or educate children?

1) I hate feeding and sheltering other people.

2) Public Schooling as it exists in the United States is a noble system, we all pay the tax yes, and not all have childeren enrolled; however all have the opportunity to enroll their children. This is the sort of government service which we should approve of and we should systematically dismantle all elitist services (limited to certain groups)

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by SKILORD

2) Public Schooling as it exists in the United States is a noble system, we all pay the tax yes, and not all have childeren enrolled; however all have the opportunity to enroll their children. This is the sort of government service which we should approve of and we should systematically dismantle all elitist services (limited to certain groups)

And what about the people with no kids?

[SKILORD]

Actually Fascists were a bad example because a combined business-millitary interest did plan to overthrow the Articles of Confederation. I should perhaps edit in a correction....

nah

[SKILORD]

Good point Osweld, being as I am, too young to pay taxes I was unaware that they paid the tax.

[General Ludd]

So, anyways, how's your life as a slave? I've always wanted to get a first hand account of a slave's life.

EDIT: And hearing it from the child of a slave will do, aswell.

[SKILORD]

Well he seems to be doing pretty well for a slave. He happens to be an Anarchist though, which could be caused by such taxes.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
"It is unreasonable people who change the world, " Frank Lloyd Wright.

In 1912, there were only 50 members of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Five years later they over threw the government, twice.

In 1965, if you told someone that in five years there would be millions of people in the streets protesting the Vietnam War, they would have looked at you like you were crazy. Yet it came true.

I agree Che. Thats why I'm looking forward to the Libertarian Political Revolution in the US. Maybe not 5 years, but it will happen at some point. The left had their chance in the 30s & 60s-70s. Its our turn now.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by SKILORD
2) Public Schooling as it exists in the United States is a noble system, we all pay the tax yes, and not all have childeren enrolled; however all have the opportunity to enroll their children. This is the sort of government service which we should approve of and we should systematically dismantle all elitist services (limited to certain groups)

Public schooling is not a benevolent government program to educate the people. It is a mechanism to dumb us down, and for the industrial giants from the turn of the last century to pre-condition workers ready to work in boring, meaningless factory jobs.

Check out www.johntaylorgatto.com.

With the connections to robber barons of old, communists should be as opposed to compulsory education as I am. However most no doubt disagree with the ciriculum, but see them as worthwhile for implanting communism in society at some later point.

Schools teach nothing besides how to follow orders. Just the message factory bosses and politicians want people to learn. How else could the robber barons get Americans off the farm and into ugly, confined factories doing dull repetitive work for unnatural hours? They force children into ugly, confined schools doing dull repetitve work broken up by bells for perscribed unnatural hours. Thus conditioning them for the factory.

John Taylor Gatto has it all documented. Read his books Dumbing Us Down, A Different Kind of Teacher, or An Underground History of American Schooling. Very good stuff.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Here's your chance. Explain why what I'm about to say is wrong.

Capitalism is immoral because it is slavery. Someone produces a commodity, and begins to manufature it. As they hire more and more workers, they begin to branch out. They begin putting down factories in other countries like China or India or Burma, where they force workers to work for a few cents each day. They cannot leave lest they starve, thus they are the corperations slaves. Slavery is immoral.

(And, just for effect: ) I spit on your covetousness, I spit on your jests. I spit on you each as individuals, not as a mass. I spit on your dogma, your blind faith in the righteousness of the strong.

I know, it's a really bad troll BUT.....So were they

Capitalism is not slavery. Someone produces a commodity, their labor. Those workers who work for little are not FORCED to work. They NEED to work. They agree to sell their labor for a low price. They don't HAVE to sell it at that price. However, people may not be willing to buy their labor if they charge more. Stop thinking of labor as different from other commodities, and it's clear.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
To whom? The people who also provide their services for free to you? There are more of them that there are of you, thus in fact, you get much more for free than you give for free. You are King.

Basically what communism is is everyone gives their labor to the community, which redistributes it (the products of it, but it amounts to the same thing) equally to everyone. But if I give more (= more valuable) labor to the community, shouldn't I get more stuff back? You are stealing some of my labor from me, because you are "paying" for only some of the labor I give.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
That's a bad choice of words. I take it you have heard of the Labour Theory of Value?

The LTOV specifies that each person receive the value of his labour and not have it taken from him (or alienated) by some other person, that other person typically being an owner of capital. The compensation you recieve must be proportional to the labour you expend. That is the core of the Marxist position. In some cases we will have to redistribute income to those who cannot work, but that does not affect the core of the argument.

If you use purloined labour as your argument, then you are actually using the communists' own argument, which is pretty funny IMHO.

So I recieve from the community the value of the labor I gave to it. So how is this different from capitalism? People point to things like the industrial era, where workers were exploited and strikes broken up, but that isn't a failure of capitalism - it's a failure of the law. As long as you prevent things like them hiring strongmen to break up strikes and such, then the workers have as much power as those who own the corporations - if the workers decide to organize and strike together. It is the fault of the workers if they don't do that.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
If that's the case, how does the boss make money?

The boss produces something to - maybe not directly, but without a boss, a lot less would get produced. The boss doesn't just sit and do nothing, you know. Bosses work too.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
It can be very simple, by being born into it. This illustrates one of the immoral aspects of Capitalism.

So someone inherits a lot of money from their parents. They still pay this money in return for something. Eventually it will be gone, unless they earn more. It's like saying saving up and retiring is immoral.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Except for minimum wage and other labor laws to regulate the labor market capitalism doesn't even make an attempt to make employers pay you a fair wage. It only claims that the market wage is fair. Now every thinking person knows that the market wage is determined by supply and demand which is constantly changing. The notion that the market wage is the fair wage is ridiculous. Communism is the ideology that sees this and corrects this.

Labor is a commodity, remember? So it IS subject to supply and demand. What you can get for it IS the "fair price". Say I happen to have some very precious metal, worth a lot. Then a whole lot of it gets discovered and the price plummets. Should people still be required to pay me your "fair price" for the precious metal?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara But those who argue about the supposed morality of capitalism always forget its very immoral history: the slave trade, the conquest and pillaging of five continents, world war, fraud, genocide, famine, etc.

You are saying capitalism = feudalism, which is not so.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Curiousity is wrong. Mark Twain captured it best when he said the morals of capitalism were "To get rich, illegally if we can, legally if we must." At no point have capitalists has any qualms about using coerced labor. From poor houses to Nazi slave camps to chain gangs to enclosure acts, far from being opposed to such things, capitalists have rushed to use it.

Coca Cola hires thugs to beat up and kill union activists in Central America and Columbia. Cholatiers use chocolate gathered by child slaves in Cote d'Ivorie. Micorsoft and TWA use prison labor to package software. Delta Pride Catfish chains the doors shut on its facotry so workers can't sneak out for a smoke break and times and limits their bathroom breaks.

Those aren't failings of capitalism, those are failings of the law.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Wasteful in terms of resources. How many cars are produced each year and how many are actually needed? Same with home appliances and all sorts of other things. Perhaps each unit takes less to produce, but overall, the excess production adds up to a huge waste of resources.

If more cars are produced than needed, then the price for cars goes down. Some companies, the inefficient ones, will go out of business or not be able to produce as many cars next year. Thus, the market self-regulates and became more efficient.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What I was saying is, whenever there is a market with more than one vendor supplying it, the total amount of goods produced will inevitably exceed the need. Unless, of course, when you have a cartel.

So the price goes down. So more people can afford the product. So more people buy it.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
War is not a natural catastrophe. War is a product of capitalism.

How do you reach THIS conclusion?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Osweld
Yes, like they choose whether they eat or not.

I agree that giving food to needy people is a nice thing to do. However, you can't FORCE someone to do it.